Coulée de Serrant is the finest biodynamic vineyards in the world which fascinated many talented great producers such as Lalou Bize-Leroy and Anne-Claude Leflaive. Coulée de Serrant is "Monopole AOC" that is able to find only few cases such as Romanee Conti, Chateau Grillet. This unique vineyard produces unique wine which is made from 100% Chenin Blanc and contains botrytis. The wine is "alive" in the bottle and changing every moment. So these wines perform differently every time like fresh fruits or fresh vegetable grown by organically.

Nicolas Joly started Biodynamie in 1980. In 1985 or 1986(according to his memory), Lalou Bize-Leroy visited Coulée de Serrant and understood everything in a moment, then she decided to implement biodynamie to her vineyards called "Domaine Leroy". After a while(late 80's), Anne-Claude Leflaive visited Coulée de Serrant and she was deeply inspired. You know the rest of the story. All these today's finest and natural wines haven't existed without Nicolas Joly's pursuit of truth and its great achievement. After over 30 years management of biodynamie, this vineyard is well-conditioned to express its terroir perfectly. Now this "Monopole AOC" is able to show its maximum potential.

If you stand in this vineyard, you can feel large and deep vibrations. You may understand everything in a moment like Lalou Bize-Leroy. However it is not necessary to go there, because all the elements are perfectly transferred to three wines - Coulée de Serrant, Clos de la Bergerie and Les Vieux Clos - and delivered to your table. Drinking is much more important.

The Wine Magician VICE

The wine of Nicolas Joly always get both praise and censure. This wine is adored by many of intellectual wine-drinkers and top wine-makers, and it is the biggest symbol of biodynamie and sophisticated wine culture. On the other hand, many people talk about this wine negatively without solid experience. Critics often mislead wine-drinkers with the words such as "difficult" "strange" "unstable" "oxydized". The biggest reason is lack of experience and their fixed mindset. This wine is not for one-time tasting with one sip. If these people have enough chance to experience same wine repeatedly, they will find true nature and change their mind. Please judge what "Nicolas Joly" is by yourself.

Nicolas Joly says "A wine Must not only taste good, but also be sincere, reflecting the subtleties of its place of origin.", we PILLARIWINE fully agrees with his statement.

Nicolas Joly is the pioneer of Biodynamic Viticulture. He started this in his vineyards since 1984. His wine has unique style and possesses outstanding quality. Coulee de Serrant is considered as one of the top white wine in the world.

This is a famous story that Madame Leroy(Lalou Bize-LEROY) was inspired by vineyards of Nicolas Joly. She understood intuitively what she needed to do, when she stepped into Nicolas Joly's vineyards in 1988. She decided to implement Biodynamie to her vineyards immediately.

Nicolas Joly, Madame Leroy and Madame Leflaive established "Renaissance des Appellations" years after. This group is crossing all over the world, 16 countries and 191 producers are belonging to(Aug 2013). Trapet, Domaine de la Pinte, Leon Barral, Il Paradiso di Manfredibelong to this group. To be a member of this group, wine producers are required to maintain the naturality of vineyards and cellar-work.

We can see many wines with stickers of "organic" "Bio" or "Non SO2" in the market. But most of them are not fully natural. Indeed, vineyards are organic, but a lot of chemical work in the cellar. Or using a lot of sorbic acid and ascorbic acid instead of SO2. Many producers are using words of organic and bio for marketing purpose.

Nicolas Joly and his group are trying to supply true wines to the world. They sound the horn to let people to look at the reality and to be smart to choose true wines, not to grab an unhealthy, factory-made, commercial wines.

The "Coulée de Serrant" is MONOPOLE, its size is 7ha only. Located on very stiff slopes, dominating the Loire, the vines resulting from the type of vine "chenin" have more than 35 to 40 years of average age; oldest having more 80 years give wood to make new vines carrying the originality of the place.

Partly cultivated with the horse, or the hand, the average output is with 20/25 hectolitres per hectare (40 authorized). The ground far from thick, (20 with 40 cm on average) is on a red schist bottom obliques which drains the vines perfectly.

The orientation of the slopes is especially Southern/Southern East (thank you to consult the data sheet for more details). The grape harvest is done in 5 times out of 3 to 4 weeks to obtain the most coloured possible maturity and the most marked by the botrytis.

Wine making : out of barrel of 500 liters (never more than new wood 5%).

It is important to show to the customers the impact of grape maturity on the taste of the wine. We harvest late on purpose to gain in complexity linked with a begining of over maturity; what we call a sort of oxydation on the the grape shouldn't be understood as oxydation linked to a bad cellar gestion.

On the pictures herewith, with 4 harvest on each parcels (link to a real massal selection and no clones on the estate) we never harvest pict 1, but pic 2 and 3 and sometimes a bit of pic 4. This doesn't affect the ageing capacity of our wines.

Q : Why the taste of Nicolas Joly wines are always different? Is this bottle variation? or wines are unstable?

A : Please imagine fresh fruits and canned fruits. Nicolas Joly's wine(and some other natural wines) are much closer to fresh fruits. As fresh fruits is changing every moment and affected a lot by environment, Nicolas Joly's wine is alive in the bottle and perform differently every season, every day and every time zone, rather than bottle variation.

On the other hand, most of the wines which are distributed widely are produced as preserved food such as canned pineapple. Taste is same every day(stable and homogenised) and gettitng older slowly.

Do not confuse oxidation with maturity (Nicolas Joly)

Chenin gets its complexity only when it is fully ripe – deep yellow. And only healthy, sustainable farming can guarantee this without grey rot. For this reason, all our grapes are picked in four or five passes as each parcel begins to raisin and form botrytis - thereby allowing the mineral flavors of Chenin to achieve their fullest intensity.

Once opened, wines made in this way continue to improve – and are in no way oxydized. To be sure that the color is not oxydation you can make the test yourself by tasting each day a glass over several days without putting the bottle in the fridge just recork. You will see the wine improving the first days even sometimes over more than a week. If the wine would be oxydized it would be undrinkable.

Our wines go well with white meat in sauce, fish with beurre blanc or even simply with a good cheese like goat cheese or Cantal. Open few hours in advance or carafe the wine. Serve at 14°C / 57°F.

Chenin with noble rot ? (Nicolas Joly)

I personally believe that chenin - along with Riesling - is one of the very few grape varieties which can only fully express their deep personalities through a fairly advance maturity which contains some “noble rot”.

This is different from late harvest. This noble rot comes for only a few days when the grape is beyond the deep yellow level. It brings to the wine a deep golden color, sometimes dark amber – but this colour must not be confused with oxidation.

At this ripening level, yield is substantially reduced while a higher level of concentration showcases the minerality of the vineyard site (schist, quartz, flint).

This level of maturity can only be reached successfully if all chemical treatments against rote are avoided. These treatments upset the subtle balance of maturity. It therefore implies an organic or biodynamic farming.